High Arctic Institute

Week 1 - Polar Bears!!

2011-08-26T13:08:00.001-05:00

The 2011 field season started off a bit different than in the past. As a result of Kurt's wife, Jennifer, giving birth to their second son on 10 June Kurt delayed his arrival in Thule by one week, with Bridger Konkel, longtime Thule veteran, and Jeff Mabe, rookie, arriving the week before (30 June) to begin getting equipment unpacked and the boat ready to put in the water. Bridger and Jeff had a very busy and successful week, getting everything unpacked and the boat ready to be put in the water. A few photos of their first week follow.

The day before Kurt and Calen Offield arrived Bridger and Jeff spotted an adult female polar bear with two yearling cubs wandering off base. They got to watch them for almost an hour as they walked along a stream rolling in the water and playing. Much later in the day the famlily wandered onto Thule Air Base...with a polar bear warning over the PA system following shortly after.

The above photo is of the ice conditions on 4 July...way too much ice! We have not seen this much ice this late in the season in 10+ years. Back in the 1990s this used to be common, with heavy ice existing until the end of July. Time sure are changing!

Jeff and Bridger walked almost all of the cliffs around Thule during the first week surveying for Peregrines. A pair of Peregrines was on Dundas (as they have been since 1993!) and they found a new nest near BMEWS. This is likely the same pair of Peregrines that have nested overlooking Wolstenholme Fjord, just north of Thule, for the past few years and which was not present this year. We should be able to collect molted feathers and using molecular genetics determine if it is the same pair or a new pair.

Satellite telemetry paper published!

2011-06-20T10:48:00.001-05:00

Our paper on the satellite tracking of Gyrfalcons tagged in Greenland came out last week in Ibis. So far it is attracting pretty good media coverage. See what the BBC had to say about the paper at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/13791688

For a short time a copy of the paper is availalbe for free at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2011.01141.x/pdf

Two New Papers Accepted!

2011-05-14T11:23:00.001-05:00

In the past month we have had two new manuscripts accepted for publication.

The first, titled "Seasonal movements of Gyrfalcons Falco rusticolus include extensive periods at sea," will be appearing in the next volume of Ibis this coming July...and possibley on-line before that. It includes never before documented research on Gyrfalcons, including the frequent use of the open ocean and ice-edge as winter habitat.

Next, a paper titled "Biology and Ecology of Gyrfalcons in Greenland," will be published in the the proceedigns from the Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World conference held in Boise this past February. Included in this paper will be data collected on Gyrfalcons populations in both central-west and northwest Greenland. Results include data on reproduction and changes in populations over time. Additionally, over the past 15 years, we have also seen an almost one week advance in the start of breeding in Gyrfalcon populaton in northwest (Thule) Greenland.

More Eider Surveys...

2010-03-09T06:51:00.000-06:00

10-11 July 2009

On both the 10th and 11th we headed back out to the largest of the Manson Islands to continue our survey of Common Eider Duck nests. Each day we spent between 7 and 8 hours walking back and forth over the island, dividing it up in a grid like fashion so we were positive to not miss a single nest. Usually, the eidiers are nest in the areas with grass and vegetation but we were surprised to also find them nesting out in the open in areas with just rocks. In these cases, the nest did not have hardly any down in them, or in some cases none, but we knew they were nests because we would see the incubating hens get up and walk off. It was very surprising at how many nests we ended up finding in out of the way areas and at the extremely high density we found in areas with vegetation. It does show that you have to survey the entire islands, to include areas down near the high water line as they sometimes nest amongst large rocks right next to the ocean. On the 11th on our way back to Thule we ran into four boats of native Greenlander hunters. They were hunting narwhales so we decided to follow them up into the fjord and watch the hunt. After following them around for over an hour and seeing no whales we gave up and headed back to Thule. On the way back we made one more stop, at an island near Dundas Village, which had a limited number of breeding eiders but a large enough colony to be included in the survey. Once home we began fueling the boat and getting ready to head back out tomorrow...

9 July 2009

2010-03-05T09:10:00.000-06:00

9 July 2009

Great weather again today and we headed out to the Manson Islands to survey for Common Eider Ducks. After the short boat ride from Thule we got started with the medium sized island (there are three island total). The medium island had a lot of nests, in addition to several pairs of Glacous Gulls, 1 pair of loons, and several pairs of Snow Buntings. Additionally, a jaeger and ruddy turnstone were also observed, but no nests found.

After spending several hours on the medium island we departed and headed over to the largest of the islands (which is huge, over mile long and likely over a half mile wide, it took us around 4 full days to survey it). We started our survey near the Arctic Tern colony on the southwest side of the island. IN all we surveyed for many, many hours and only got a small portion of the island done. In addition to eiders we also found a breeding pair of jaegers, ravens, nesting Long-tailed Ducks, loons, and nesting Snow Buntings. The Long-tailed Ducks are only near where the terns breed as they use them for protection from predators, and no tern or Long-tailed Duck chicks had yet hatched. Many of the eider nests had hatched, with chicks observed on the water in large groups with hens and in a few nests.

On the way home we also stopped to survey the smallest of the islands. It is very small but was absolutely covered in eiders. There were nests everywhere, almost one nest for every square foot, very amazing. From there we headed home to get a good rest after a very long day of bending over to count nests/eggs/chicks.

Eider Duck Survey - Day 1

2010-02-10T10:36:00.000-06:00

8 July 2009 - The weather cleared and it was calm with sun. One of the projects we have decided to do this summer is to survey all of the Common Eider Duck colonies in the area. In general, the eiders nest on islands at extremely high densities, in some cases with 1000s of nests on one island. A similar study was done approximately 10 years back surveying all of the known colonies so it is our plan to duplicate the past survey and see what changes, if any, have occurred in the density.

So the first islands we decided to survey is called, in English, none other than the "Eider Duck Islands". After a short boat ride of about 45 minutes from Thule we arrived on the island and unloaded our gear on shore and tied the boat up in a safe location. Since most of the island has nests on it we have to find a location that has no nests to set our equipment and get situated as to not disturb the hens and keep them from their nests. Once situated we began a methodical survey of the island with two of us counting nests and one person recording the data in a field notebook. Many of the nests had already hatched but since they are lined with down it was clear if they had been used or not. So we basically spent the next 10 hours systematically traversing the island and calling out to the scribe "1 egg, 2 eggs..." or "down" or "3 chicks" or "1 egg, 2 pipped (as in starting to hatch)". Basically for every nest we found occupied we tried to collect as much information as possible, such as had the eggs already hatched so egg shell fragments were present, if eggs were present, how many or were they pipped, or were there eggs and chicks in the nest, or just chicks. In all we counted over 4,400 nests on the islands, a huge number.

So the obvious next question is how do we know we are not counting some nests twice? We place small sugar cubes in the bottom of the nest to identify it has been counted...with the cubes dissolving in the next rain. No, we did not think of this ourselves, but it does work well. Additionally, it is the job of the scribe to keep us on track and make sure no areas are missed. We also counted all other nests we found, which included both Glaoucous Gull and Snow Goose nests, of which neither species had begun to hatch.

After a long day counting, with tired backs from bending over thousands of times to examine each nest, we headed back to Thule.

Bad Weather

2010-01-28T20:03:00.001-06:00

The days of 3-7 July were made up of windy and overcast weather. While clouds are not a problem, wind is, and with as little as a 15-20 knot wind we can not make it out onto the water to work. While the boat can take the larger waves, we end up getting wet and it is nearly impossible to land the boat anywhere to let people get ashore. Even using the dingy, once you approach the shore you can't get out and if you try you will likely slip on the rocks or get thrown into them.

So with bad weather prevailing we decided to survey the ponds around Thule for shorebirds and waterfowl and hopefully capture a few birds at the same time. We surveyed around 20 ponds and took point counts and found several pairs of nesting Canada Geese. Ten years ago no Canada Geese nested at Thule but now they are extremely common.

As part of project we are cooperating with the USGS on we are collecting fecal swabs from as many different birds as possible so they can analyze them for various strains of H1N1 (bird flu). So with that in mind we decided to try and capture a few Canada Geese. We set up at one of the nests using a standard capture technique called a bow net. Basically, when open, the net is round and about 8 feet in diameter, with the outer edge having a small conduit pipe running through it. To use the net you fold it in half, so you have two half circles. The two half circles are hooked together with springs. So to set it you put it over the nest and fold back half of the circle. You then run a line attached to a trigger 50-100' away and cover a person with camo to pull the trigger. Once the adult goose comes back and sits down on the nest you wait until it is in a safe position and pull the trigger. After that you slowly approach the net and capture the adult. It is a bit more complicated than as explained above but it is all very safe, with the adult and eggs unharmed. You then quickly process the adult and turn it loose, with is almost immediately returning to the nest. For the nest we were working with it all worked just as described and we were successful in capturing and sampling one of the adults.

Other than surveying we spent the days working in the barracks getting things organized and cleaned up. Lets hope for good weather soon!

Arrived

2009-07-05T10:55:00.000-05:00

We arrived at Thule Air Base on 1 July after a bumpy but otherwise comfortable flight from BWI. As usual, the Air Force charter flight departed in the middle of the night, at 0200, getting us into Thule at around 0930. This year I am accompanied by Dr. Jeff Johnson, a wildlife biologist from the University of North Texas (his 5th year in Thule) and Bridger Konkel, a volunteer and professional painter from Wyoming (his 3rd year in Thule). For me, Kurt Burnham, this is my 17th field season in Thule, and 19th in Greenland.

Upon arrival at Thule we were greeted by our longtime co-worker and friend, Jack Stephens, a weatherman at Thule and semi-professional photographer in his spare time. Jack has lived in Thule for around 37 years and is an avid outdoors man. He frequently accompanies us into the field to help and take photos of our research.

After getting picked up at the airport we proceeded to building 353, an old Air Force barracks which is now used to house scientists working out of Thule. Last summer was the first year the building was used by scientist and we spent almost a week renovating and fixing it up, and as a result, this summer feels like a homecoming. After getting unpacked and a fast lunch we drove to building 628, where we store our boat and gear, and began the process of unpacking and getting the boat ready to put in the water.

By the morning of 2 July the boat was nearly ready and the gear was unpacked. We put the boat in the water in the early afternoon, using rusty old 12 ft. sections of track to back the truck and boat trailer into the ocean. While a slow process moving tracks, it only took us about an hour to get the boat in the water, compared to many hours in past years. Once the boat was in the water it started immediately, a relief. With good weather predicted for the rest of the afternoon and evening Jeff, Bridger, and I decided to make short 20 mile trip to the south to check a Gyrfalcon nest.

Upon arriving at the nest we immediately realized the sea was too rough to be able to tie the boat up so being the boat captain I managed to drop Bridger and Jeff off on the shore to check the nest while I floated around. After a short but extremely steep hike they reached the nest and found five white Gyrfalcon chicks in the nest. This is the second time we have found five young in this nest, which is pretty unusual with Gyrs usually producing a maximum of four young.

Despite the sea getting rougher we decided Bridger would climb into the nest and collect samples from all five chicks in addition to banding as many of the young as possible. He did this without difficulty and then he and Jeff began the long and treacherous climb down to the boat. Upon getting back to the rock and cliff lined ocean shore I lined the boat up below a large rock and despite the rocking and bucking ocean they both managed to jump down and onto the deck without incident.

With our first falcon nest done we headed back to Thule. What a great start to the trip!